1. Field
Example embodiments of the following description relate to a method and apparatus for expressing a rigid area based on expression control points, and more specifically, to a method and apparatus to interpolate a change of expression of an avatar with respect to an input expression, using a weight and a transformation matrix, which correspond to a rigid area of each of a plurality of expression samples.
2. Description of the Related Art
In producing an avatar, a face is a significant factor that represents characteristics and various pieces of information of a person corresponding to the avatar. In particular, eyes and a mouth are a most influential parts for delivering emotions and words. That is, the eyes and mouth play an important role in expressing emotions and words of a 3-dimensional (3D) avatar. However, general animation technologies have been focusing on motions of a facial shape. Therefore, motions of eyes and a jaw with teeth have been produced and controlled by manual operations of artists. The eyes and the jaw with teeth are rigid objects, different from a facial skin. Therefore, when those rigid objects are controlled in the same manner as the facial skin, characteristics of the rigid objects are not preserved and unnatural curvature or distortion may be caused.